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on it
    with all his weight, but the handle did not budge. What the hell He
    slid across the seat impatiently and reached for the handle on the
    passenger-side door, but that, too, did not budge. He banged on it with
    his closed fist until his hand screamed with pain and then he raised his
    rifle and slammed the handle with the rifle butt. Nothing happened.
     
    Except the windows rolled up.
     
    The driver sat back in shock. They were certainly not power windows.
     
    Huh? he said to an invisible passenger.
     
    He kicked at the door, but it was like kicking at a cement wall.
     
    The truck started. He jumped back as if the steering wheel were on
    fire. The engine raced.
     
    What the hell's going on? He turned the ignition key, but it was
    already on off. The truck shook and rumbled as the engine raced harder
    and harder.
     
    Panic set in. The driver slammed the windows with his rifle, but they
    didn't as much as crack. He felt as if he were choking, as if all air
    were cut off. Then he realized the faulty exhaust system, the carbon
    monoxide He flailed about like a man going down in quicksand, but
    nothing helped. Nothing. Finally, seeing no other way, he pointed the
    rifle at the side window and pulled the trigger. The report was ear
    shattering, and he thought, as crazy as it seemed, that he actually saw
    the bullet bounce off the window and turn around. It seemed to hesitate
    for a moment as if it, too, didn't believe what was happening, or didn't
    want what was happening to happen. But neither he nor the bullet had
    any say in the matter.
     
    It continued its ricochet and crashed through his fore head, lifting him
    slightly off the seat and throwing him back against his door, the rifle
    flying out of his hands and landing on the seat.
     
    The engine stopped. The door handle went down and the door opened. The
    driver fell back, but his legs got caught under the steering wheel and
    he dangled there, his body swaying in the wind.
     
    Jessie woke with a start. Her body was comfortably curled in the pocket
    of Lee's embrace, his right arm lying lightly over her shoulder. They
    had fallen asleep almost immediately after making love, both enjoying
    that gentle and welcome fatigue that followed. Jessie recognized that
    through their lovemaking they both rid their bodies of the day's
    anxiety. Sex was an antidote for tension, for loneliness, and
    especially for fear.
     
    With every kiss, with each touch, they reinforced their alliance and
    assured each other that no matter how cold and dark the world seemed to
    be around them, they were in a warm, protective cocoon.
     
    Lee would tease her about their sexual relations now.
     
    It was the only time he inserted any humor into a discussion of her
    blindness.
     
    Wait a minute, he said after they had made love one night, if the
    doctors are right about you and your other senses have become sharper,
    you're probably getting more out of this than I am now.
     
    So practice keeping your eyes closed when we make love, she replied, and
    they laughed.
     
    But it was true. Often, when they made love she felt something beyond
    what she had felt before the accident she reached a higher plateau.
    Right at the point of orgasm, she seemed to leave the confines of her
    body and become part of some ongoing stream, a flow of souls, a greater,
    higher form of life. It was an altogether different sort of ecstasy,
    not sensual, not pleasurable in the common sense; her body didn't tingle
    and feel filled with electricity. This ecstasy came from a sense of
    completion, as if as if she had a taste of what would come in the
    hereafter. Of course, she didn't mention a word about it to Lee. He
    would just lay the blame on her overworked imagination again, and she
    instinctively sensed he might not appreciate knowing she wasn't thinking
    of him per se when they made great love.
     
    They had made great love tonight, both of them driven by a need to
    comfort themselves as well as each other.
     
    Lee